Benjmain's 75g Garage Reef

[mrbee2828]

Benjamin's Upgraded 125g Garage Reef Build

Hello R2R, I've been lurking on and off for a bit and decided to start sharing some of my experiences over here as I have been on several other communities (many of you may have already seen this sorry). I'm about to start a new build so I thought I would share a prior one for some background. I've been keeping freshwater for years and have always been nervous about saltwater. In 2011 I decided I wanted to try saltwater and started researching for about 4 months before finding a good starter tank on CraigsList. To make it a bit easier to learn, I decided to put the tank in my man cave aka the garage. I'm out there working all the time and watching football at the bar anyway so I figured it was a good spot in the event I spilled something or didn't feel like cleaning up after a water change etc.

Temperature was my biggest concern here in Virginia because we get a variety of situations. I started by insulating the cheap garage doors I had and starting looking for a chiller for the summer. Next was redoing my workbench to be very secure, level and I removed cabinets across the garage from a prior remodel and installed large shelving. This would later hold water changing stations, the chiller and ballasts. So here are some shots of the start in 2012.

The workbench and cabinets as is with Christmas gear all over.

The tank on day 1 (UGLY)

Insulating the doors.

Redoing the workbench

Shelves going in

Done and loaded with junk again.

Redoing the plumbing out of the wall for heater and RODI

RODI

Mixing station

 

[mrbee2828]

The setup came with 2 canister filters and those were swapped out for a sump a few weeks later. I started out not knowing a ton about drilled tanks and such and went with what I knew and what was cheap so I built PVC overflows like I had on a cichlid build for awhile. It was terrible. They never worked right and would die on me all the time. It never worked like my other tank so after a few months I had to jump in and drill it. I got a box made for the back and did a bean animal style overflow. The sump is a 40g breeder and after 4 months it snapped in the back. One of my baffles was too snug and the pressure won out eventually. I have since learned to make the baffles lose and let the silicon do it's thing.

Tank in January 2012

Tank with 50# of rock added in February as well as PVC overflows and sump

The first sump

The crack after a month of running it

I ran a 30g while I waited to find a good deal on another 40g

The new sump a few months into summer

 

[MarvinsReef]

how's the temp holding during winter? looking forward to seeing more of the progress.

 

[mrbee2828]

Now a little insight into what has happened during the time I got this going. Around March I met a guy at our local reef club meeting needing a website for his aquarium maintenance business. I do this FT so we discussed getting some stock at cost to pay of the work. Over the next 2 months we hit things off. He knew nothing about work working, plumbing, acrylic, design etc etc. I went to school for design, learned web development out of necessity and have always been a self taught DIY kinda' guy on everything else. I have also run my own business and we decided to partner.

Since then we have expanded his business Aquacare (www.facebook.com/aquacareonline for a look at our stuff), which did tank maintenance, into a full service marine consulting, installation and care company. We advice, plan, build, install, select livestock and care for the tanks. Combing his knowledge of corals and fish with my DIY ability we have since grown a ton. Through 2012 I went from not understanding reef plumbing to drilling and installing over 12 large tanks. I now manufacture my own acrylic overflows for them as well and will be experimenting with sumps this year. So this will explain how my tank has progressed from here on.

 

[mrbee2828]

So back to the tank for a bit. I started with inverts and then added a pair of false clowns a maybe in Feb. I got a RBTA in March. BTW, the tank I got was running before and the live rock was in a container with flow and heat through December and January while I worked on the setup. So things were somewhat seasoned already. You can see the 50# of base I added are covered with diatoms and aging. I also got a few pieces from some local members with kenya trees on them. The light was a 4 bulb T5 and had moonlights so I had that all on timers.

I made some DIY screens so that I could get some fire fish and gobies. I got some chromis as well.

This got me into summer and I purchased a new chiller through one of our distributers and reworked the plumbing. It sat to the left of the sump which was awkward for awhile. It also just vented into the garage so it was heating and cooling and on all the time. Not a great setup.

Due to the business we come across different situations and we happened to get a call from a guy who lost his job and needed to unload a 125g. I kept some of the stock, we sold some of it and I flipped the tank and stand for another client. Here we are in June with that stock and some other frags from local people I picked up.

 

[mrbee2828]

I sold the larger hippo shortly after and the other hippo is just as big today. So somewhere in the summer I had really learned a lot and wanted to get into better corals. Which meant the lighting had to get changed up. I ordered some Radion LEDs and did a temporary wire rig which has become a permanent one I guess LOL.

I swapped out the lenses with the new ones before the Gen 2s came out. You can't win with technology... always behind I guess.

Hung with the power supplies above.

The difference is as ridiculous as the price. I've installed everything from MH to Chinese LEDs to these and nothing compares. It's like getting a BMW and then trying to get back into a Honda.

Before and after

Added a lot of coral and fish over the next 6 months or so. Lots of stories and will answer questions as they are posted.

 

[Blake11rebel]

Great tank! Ive been thinking about setting up a 75 in my garage and this is great inspiration. I especially like your chaeto basket lol

 

[mrbee2828]

OK so sometime in October I decided to do a massive experiment which could have gone horribly wrong. I took everything I had learned and threw it out of the window and added a 2nd 40g to the system. The goal was to increase water volume and have a frag tank and a tank to hold fish from other systems we got that didn't have any business in my tank. They would also be easier to catch and sell. BTW, my partner houses all the fish at his place and I do all the construction at mine and have the tools. We always need more tanks though lol. We had just gotten a rock order too and this thing got crowded over a few weeks as I added rock into it.

However, and I know this is nuts and against the "rules" but for whatever insane reason I did it anyway, I removed all the sand from my display and added it to the new tank. This was pool filter sand. For those on a budget, it's a great option. $9 a bag, a few colors depending on the store and not powder fine. HOWEVER It just doesn't look like "real" sand on the ocean floor and I got some fiji pink live sand. I plumbed in the new tank which just barely has enough drain power to not overflow the new 40g. Again, it was an experiment on the plumbing. As a result I redid the sump again and this time with 3/8" baffles and nice combs.

So I syphoned out all the old sand to keep my bio load and added live sand into the display. It was insane. Everything was hurting and I lost a few fish and almost lost my corals. Everything eventually came back but it was scary. Don't try this at home kids! As for the plumbing, it just needs a 3rd drain or more of a drop for gravity to do it's thing.

And eventually it became this

 

[ReefPops]

Very interesting and cool setup. I'd never leave the garage if my tank was in there

 

[mrbee2828]

So today it's about 150g total volume and super stable with a jillion pounds of rock lol. I started vodka dosing last month and I have been dosing ALK with baking soda. Water changes have done fine for calcium and magnesium but I'm adding more each week. I picked up some dosing pumps and will be adding them over the next month or so. I still have reading to do but it's not going to be too bad to do a 2 part. Here are some some stock shots along the way over the last year.

First pair of young clowns. One died in the overflow and was replaced by an onyx and they have paired.

My RBTA which was golf ball size, has been split and is now bigger than my handed and fingers opened up.

Early inhabitants

 

[mrbee2828]

I added a MP10 in November I think as well. More...

And the cave sometime at the start of football seasons with dreams of RG3 taking us to the superbowl before his injury

 

[mrbee2828]

how's the temp holding during winter? looking forward to seeing more of the progress.

So January - March of 2012 we very mild here in Virginia Beach, VA. I don't think it got below 40º. The garage got to about 55º and the tank had no issues with 2 200w heaters. I never looked at the electric bill so I don't know if the heaters were on 24hrs a day. It ran around 78º. This summer was a challenge. It got up to 100° a few times and the kids always have the door open to play outside. The chiller was on all the time and venting into the garage. One project this winter is to vent it into the attic as it's located above the tank right now. I added a 2nd pump to power that instead of going to an external pump and having to redo everything again. With the water volume and another heater we're doing fine this winter but it's been cold and hot, on and off so who knows. Even when I have had the garage open on cold days it does well due to the volume.

 

[mrbee2828]

Great tank! Ive been thinking about setting up a 75 in my garage and this is great inspiration. I especially like your chaeto basket lol

LOL, good luck. If you have any questions let me know. The basket was a quick way to hold it while I had that 30g going after the crack.

 

[mrbee2828]

Very interesting and cool setup. I'd never leave the garage if my tank was in there

I don't lol. I'm either in my office at home or out there working or watching football on the weekends. I love it.

 

[MarvinsReef]

So January - March of 2012 we very mild here in Virginia Beach, VA. I don't think it got below 40º. The garage got to about 55º and the tank had no issues with 2 200w heaters. I never looked at the electric bill so I don't know if the heaters were on 24hrs a day. It ran around 78º. This summer was a challenge. It got up to 100° a few times and the kids always have the door open to play outside. The chiller was on all the time and venting into the garage. One project this winter is to vent it into the attic as it's located above the tank right now. I added a 2nd pump to power that instead of going to an external pump and having to redo everything again. With the water volume and another heater we're doing fine this winter but it's been cold and hot, on and off so who knows. Even when I have had the garage open on cold days it does well due to the volume.

Good deal. Good luck with the winter project. Will be following along.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[nytegti]

Welcome to R2R Ben! i'm glad you brought the build over here. I followed this build for a long time on AA but I stopped going to that forum as this one fits so much better

 

[mrbee2828]

So I've had a LM3 sitting around for a few weeks now and have been going snowboarding a lot. I really needed to get this tank automated more. I didn't just want to throw it on the workbench and have stuff everywhere because I need to get things more organized so I can work better/safer/cleaner/faster. So I decided to make a holder/shelf for the pumps. I planned to make it out of wood scraps but after I started I was talking with my partner about making custom holding tanks for our inverts in our new spot.


I've only made overflows with black acrylic so I have never seen my seams so I decided to make this out of acrylic scraps and start figuring out weld techniques. Here are some pictures of the process. A lot of the acrylic was from old baffles that I cleaned up with vinegar later. I messed up on drilling the pump holes the first time around. You can see my first seam looks terrible but they got better as I went along. I imagine it's more difficult to get these looking good on smaller, lighter projects. I also didn't bother with routing the edges over or polishing anything here. Open to suggestions!


Configuration thoughts. Note that I took apart all 3 pumps and inverted the motors on each so they would face downward. I don't know if this will work or not honestly but I don't see why not nor do I see why they aren't like this by default.

I messed up on this piece. The bit drifted a bit.

Decided to make it taller and this one worked out.

My first seam was terrible. Spidered and air bubbles everywhere. With this being so small clamps seem to be the only solution vs. a large sump piece and it's weight on the weld.

.


Coming together. The seams got cleaner with clamps. A few measurement mistakes here and using what I had laying around. I cut holes for the controls up front.

The shelf for the rack.

Placing this out of the way between the rock tank and the sump.

Counter sunk and mounted to the shelf. Seam on the bottom was my first and the vertical one was probably my 3rd.

Perfect fit!

Everything is in place. I don't get why the LM3 uses guest connections on 1 side and zips on the other. Maybe to accept different input diameters?

Controls are easy to get to and I filed out a notch for the power.

Dosing will go from daily to weekly I'm guessing. We'll see. The tank is a KH draw over CAL. I got some small Rubbermaid containers and modded the tops.

Holes for hoses and vents to stop occlusion.

Ready to go! I'm only dosing 8ml of vodka a day at the moment so I went with a smaller container for some stupid reason. I should have gotten the same size just to keep it neat.

 

[mrbee2828]

So the dosing has been great. It's so much nicer not having to measure all this stuff out and treat the tank daily. I have gotten into a routine of just checking levels every few days to make sure things are going well. The bottles are lasting me about a 7-9 days or so. I'm sure I can increase the strength of the mix to make it last longer but it's working great right now.

I've also stumbled into a 125g that's too cheap to pass up. I have discussed upgrading the tank on and off for months now, even buying a 125 last summer and deciding it was too soon. We'll see what happens. I'm picking up the tank tomorrow. I'm either upgrading or flipping. I'll need to pick up another radion for that tank so it will be awhile before the upgrade is complete.

 

[mrbee2828]

I picked up a lens extension for my Nikon. Mounted with my 200mm zoom, it's a $20 macro lens until I can stop buying coral and get a real $500 version

 

[bknapp]

Nice set up Benjamain! Garage is pretty sweet!